The path to less stress? Strategic pessimism. | Derren Brown | Big Think

The path to less stress? Strategic pessimism.
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The centuries old philosophy of Stoicism may hold the key to a kind of happiness that is more grounded in reality.

The two main ideas of stoic happiness are that problems are caused by your reactions to events not the events themselves, and the only things you can control are your thoughts and your actions.

Choosing strategic pessimism over optimism and positive thinking is one way to avoid "unnecessary disturbance and anxiety."
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DERREN BROWN

Derren Brown began his UK television career in December 2000 with a series of specials called Mind Control. In the UK, his name is now pretty much synonymous with the art of psychological manipulation. Amongst a varied and notorious TV career, Derren has played Russian Roulette live, convinced middle-managers to commit armed robbery, led the nation in a séance, stuck viewers at home to their sofas, successfully predicted the National Lottery, motivated a shy man to land a packed passenger plane at 30,000 feet, hypnotised a man to assassinate Stephen Fry, and created a zombie apocalypse for an unsuspecting participant after seemingly ending the world. He has also written several best-selling books and has toured with eight sell-out one-man stage shows.
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TRANSCRIPT:

So, I became interested in stoicism over the last few years I wrote a book called Happy, which was delving into stoicism. Stoicism was the dominant school of philosophy for 500 years before Christianity took over, so when it did it was the stoics they had to win round. And because of that they incorporated and appealed to a lot of stoic ideas so for that reason they still sound familiar to us nowadays. But when you look into them with the rigor that they were looked into 2000 years ago they provide I think a very useful and realistic as in really grounded in reality approach to happiness. What stoicism says there’s sort of a couple of big building blocks. One is a familiar idea to us still that it isn’t events in the world that caused our problems but is our reactions to those events, the stories we form about them, our judgments about those events that’s where our problems come from.

And we know that to be true because if something is really upsetting us we can always imagine someone we know who would react to that thing differently and as long as we can always do that that’s like a big clue that it’s our reaction that’s causing the problem not the thing itself. Once you’ve got your head around that the other big building block of it is, and I think this is where it’s supremely useful, is that we can only control certain things in life. If we try and control things we can’t we are going to frustrate ourselves and become anxious. The old idea of happiness that the stoic sort of enjoyed was that happiness was a sort of tranquility so this is really all about a recipe for avoiding unnecessary disturbance and anxiety so you don’t try and control things that you can’t. Now, the only things you can control are your thoughts and your actions and that is it. That’s it. And if you accept the idea that everything outside of your thoughts and actions are fine, they’re fine as they are and you let that idea really sort of drip into your soul then you have a very good template for avoiding unnecessary disturbance and anxiety.

[asecretturning]

Derren Brown: You're in control of your thoughts and actions
Me: WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO US NOW DERREN

[gonoszcerkof]

Whenever I see Derren, I feel like either my bank account is being emptied or I'm gonna win every pub quiz for the rest of my life.

[MichaelSOlan]

Can’t even control our thoughts sometimes. But we can choose how we interpret them, much to the point of this video

[plastik]

"When you react against something, often you inherit the structure of that thing, and you just change the variables in it"

[robertmelia]

DB's book "Happy" really is a design for life.
My world is particularly dark and challenging at the moment and employing Stoic methods( within reason ) and mindful meditation really helps. Love Derren, he is the epitome of altruism. 💙

[osteouk]

I have DB’s audiobook of Happy. Didn’t realise that I was already a Stoic until this, was nice to learn that I wasn’t alone in my laidback world.

[ginaheller]

This has been a defense mechanism I have used my whole life without even knowing!

[TheRexTera]

My left ear enjoyed this more than the right...

[staffieuk]

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

[MrZkoki]

A restless mind, that had no other choice but find a safe haven and refuge in the orderly realm of reason. He tamed his restlessness and gained deep insight into himself and the world. Wisdom comes at a heavy price, definetly worth paying for.

[TheRexTera]

The focus on positively is based on the fact that a lot of our life is affected by our demeanor. Most of the painful misfortune that happens to us is the pain of self realization. A hard breakup, loosing a job or loosing a friend is equal measure of your own behavior and lack of reading signals. Thats when you need to own up even if it wasn’t you fault.

[Moe_shorts]

I really liked this, it should be trending.

[chaugulepankaj]

Stoicism - our reaction to out of control situation is itself a problem than the situation itself.

[fishypaw]

"Tennis" ... used to play and know exactly what he means. When I am in the zone, I play well and I don't think about the points or winning or losing, but as soon as I start to think or worry about the points and outcome, my game goes to shit. It's the same with so many other things in life.

[mrsan]

I can not control outcome but my effort.

i have to control my reaction.

[PracticalInspiration]

Wow, I didn't recognise him at first! Stoic philosophy is really interesting to me, love this.

[jackmuaddib]

Stoicism as far as I could understand is all about self-control. You don't want to allow your emotions to dictate your actions. You want to make rational decisions, not ones solely based on your feelings. As of what he's talking about, i like to think of it as maintaining reasonable confidence in one's own capabilities, or simply:staying in your lane.
I believe we all live within these two spheres: the first is our sphere of concern, what we worry about, and the second is our sphere of influence, what we can control or change. As long as our sphere of concern stays smaller then our sphere of influence then everything's fine, but once we start concerning ourselves with things outside of our influence, that's when we start to worry. It takes a disciplined mind to remind oneself that there are things beyond our control. A person can expand their sphere of influence, but to do so takes a great amount of effort and sacrifice. It is much healthier to only concern oneself with things they can control, but that's not always easy. Humans posses things like empathy that make us feel like we should do something whenever we see something we think is wrong. It's up to each one of us to make A choice of how far we're going to go to change something and what we willing to give up to do so.

[exploringbiblicalendtimes]

It does make sense as once we learn to accept we have no control over things then we can relax easier

[carolyn]

This is so good it needs to be watched twice.

[craigfrancisjohnson]

I love this philosophy and I wish more people followed it, especially my nearest and dearest cos they get so het up with things they cannot change